m the rite."

The countenance, then, of Marie Francois Arouet (since so celebrated
under the name of Voltaire) was plain in feature, but singularly
striking in effect; its vivacity was the very perfection of what Steele
once happily called "physiognomical eloquence." His eyes were blue,
fiery rather than bright, and so restless that they never dwelt in the
same place for a moment:* his mouth was at once the worst and the most
peculiar feature of his face; it betokened humour, it is true; but it
also betrayed malignancy, nor did it ever smile without sarcasm. Though
flattering to those present, his words against the absent, uttered by
that bitter and curling lip, mingled with your pleasure at their wit
a little fear at their causticity. I believe no one, be he as bold, as
callous, or as faultless as human nature can be, could be one hour with
that man and not feel apprehension. Ridicule, so lavish, yet so true
to the mark; so wanton, yet so seemingly just; so bright, that while it
wandered round its target, in apparent though terrible playfulness, it
burned into the spot, and engraved there a brand, and a token indelible
and perpetual,--this no man could witness, when darted towards another,
and feel safe for himself. The very caprice and levity of the jester
seemed more perilous, because less to be calculated upon, than a
systematic principle of bitterness or satire. Bolingbroke compared him,
not unaptly, to a child who has possessed himself of Jupiter's bolts,
and who makes use of those bolts in sport which a god would only have
used in wrath.

* The reader will remember that this is a description of Voltaire as a
very young man. I do not know anywhere a more impressive, almost a more
ghastly, contrast than that which the pictures of Voltaire, grown old,
present to Largilliere's picture of him at the age of twenty-four; and
he was somewhat younger than twenty-four at the time of which the Count
now speaks.--ED.

Arouet's forehead was not remarkable for height, but it was nobly and
grandly formed, and, contradicting that of the mouth, wore a benevolent
expression. Though so young, there was already a wrinkle on the surface
of the front, and a prominence on the eyebrow, which showed that the
wit and the fancy of his conversation were, if not regulated, at least
contrasted, by more thoughtful and lofty characteristics of mind. At the
time I write, this man has obtained a high throne among the powers of
the lettered